Student counts mixed

As local schools anxiously await funding news from the legislature, they mull their recently released student count day numbers.

Since schools are funded by a formula called the per pupil foundation allowance, the number of children which a school has directly affects the institution’s budget.

“We have 396 — we’re down by about 22 kids,” said Charlevoix Elementary School principal Dick Swenor. “We keep track of where people go and why they go, and almost everyone of them has moved because of jobs in the last two years.”

Last year’s total student count for Charlevoix Public Schools was 1,178.67 — the .67 of a student is derived by including the fractional instruction time St. Mary School students once received in physical education, music and technology. The two schools now only have a contract for technology.

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Last year’s breakdown for the September student count shows the high school with 411.42, the middle school with 342.98 and elementary with 424.27.

A look at September student counts going back as far as 2003 shows a steady decline in enrollment at Charlevoix Public Schools:

• Fall 2007 - 1,230.25 students

• Fall 2006 - 1,265.46 students

• Fall 2005 - 1,283.63 students

• Fall 2004 - 1,348.07 students

• Fall 2003 - 1,351.08 students

Using last year’s per pupil funding amount of $8,424, Charlevoix Public Schools will lose nearly $235,872 just from the decrease at the elementary and middle schools alone. And that, said Charlevoix Public Schools business manager Shawn Biddle, is assuming there will be no cuts to this year’s foundation allowance.

“The latest we heard was there would be an increase by $218 per pupil plus categorical cuts for things like at-risk (programs) and declining enrollment (programs),” she said. “Last year there were cuts, but the state backfilled using stimulus money.”

Swenor said the obvious solution to this problem is for Michigan to regain its financial feet.

“We’ve had a really exciting, great start to school even with the down climate in the financial realm,” he said. “We’ve lost kids, but it’s been a good smattering across the classrooms so it hasn’t affected our staffing levels, there are just fewer kids here and there, but you’re not going to be able to do that for very long.”

Swenor added, “I think we’ve lost more families to out of state (in the last couple years) than in my whole 12 years before that.”

While Charlevoix Public Schools officials continue to struggle with a continued decline in enrollment, Northwest Academy of Charlevoix is working to cope with a continued increase.

“Last year’s September count was 74, so we have a few more kids at 81, but the biggest jump is the Seat Time Waive kids,” said Northwest Academy school administrator John Bailey.

Northwest’s total count is 131.18. The .18 of a student reflects the work Northwest does with home-schooled children who take music and foreign language classes at the school.

“It’s really taken off for us,” Bailey said of the Seat Time Waiver program which allows people children through young adult to take online classes from home. “They (State of Michigan) did us a great favor by upping us to 50.”

Bailey’s former cap on Seat Time Waiver students was 25.

“Our philosophy is that we need to fit the program to the kids, as opposed to the other way around, and I think that’s what is drawing people in,” he said. “It costs more per student to do Seat Time Waiver than to do regular students because in our plan we provide a computer, Internet hookup at home and we pay a mentor to work with them either at home or here.”

Student count days are held the fourth Wednesday after Labor day and the second Wednesday after February each year.